AAN News
Wal-Mart Testing Out Free Online Classifieds Servicenew
The Wall Street Journal |
06-03-2008 2:46 pm |
Industry News
Report: Interactivity Pushes Internet Ad Revenues Up 26 Percentnew
According to the Interactive Advertising Bureau's (IAB) Internet Advertising Report, conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers and released this month, internet advertising revenues in the United States totaled $21.2 billion for 2007, up from $16.9 billion in 2006. "This achievement is a testament to the continued vitality of interactive," IAB president and ceo Randall Rothenberg says. "Explosive innovation in the industry is providing marketers with new and unique ways to reach consumers."
MediaPost |
05-30-2008 8:34 am |
Industry News
AAN Launches 2008 Convention Community Blog
The convention's still a week away, but today AAN is unveiling this year's community blog, Philadelphia2008.aan.org. This marks the second year AAN is running a community blog for the convention. We'll be using the blog to share updates on the convention as well as recommend places to go in Philly, but the blog is also yours, and we welcome anyone attending the convention to join us and blog -- click here to register.
AAN |
05-29-2008 4:06 pm |
Association News
Membership Committee Recommends Two Papers for Admission to AAN
This year the committee recommends two of the 12 applying papers for admission to the association: City Pulse from Lansing, Mich., and Hawaii Island Journal from Hilo, Hawaii. The committee also recommends that the five papers that have changed ownership recently be re-affirmed as members of the organization. Those papers are: Metro Pulse, The Other Paper, Cityview, East Bay Express, and Boston's Weekly Dig. The committee's complete report is available in the Resource Library, along with a document featuring ownership reports on each of the applying papers and the papers up for review. The reports will also be available in printed form during this year's Convention in Philadelphia. Each AAN member paper can vote for or against the acceptance of an applying paper at the association's annual meeting, which will be held on the last day of the Convention, Saturday, June 7.
(FULL STORY)
Erin Sullivan |
05-29-2008 9:34 am |
Association News
AAN Launches AltWeeklies.com 2.0
After months of planning and preparation, the Association of Alternative
Newsweeklies today debuted the second iteration of AltWeeklies.com, the
association's story-sharing and content-portal website. The new site
incorporates many new types of content and organizes it all in a way that
makes it much easier for users to find what they are looking for. Read here to learn more about the changes.
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
05-22-2008 5:15 pm |
Association News
LEO Acquired by Ex-Nashville Scene Publisher's Companynew
The Louisville Eccentric Observer was acquired by SouthComm Communications, a company headed by former Scene publisher Chris Ferrell, according to LEO. The change was announced to staff this morning. Pam Brooks will stay on as publisher, but other LEO staffers were not so lucky. Brooks told a local blog that editor Cary Stemle, sales director Kelly Gream, and two other employees weren't offered positions with the new company. SouthComm, which was formed late last year, owns a custom publishing company based in Atlanta, as well as various Nashville websites and magazines.
Louisville Eccentric Observer |
05-22-2008 4:21 pm |
Industry News
Index Newspapers & DesertNet Unveil New Content Management System
The company that owns The Stranger and Portland Mercury announces the release today of Foundation, "a highly customizable, fully integrated
content-management system for alt-weeklies." The new system, which was developed in partnership with DesertNet, includes dynamic calendars, city guides, user profiles, and extensive editorial tools. "With its customizable layouts and
components, Foundation will reduce alt-weeklies' reliance on
expensive web development," the Index Newspaper press release says.
(FULL STORY)
Index Newspapers Press Release |
05-22-2008 8:35 am |
Press Releases
NOW Magazine Confronts Drop in Print Readershipnew
Canada's Print Measurement Bureau recently released numbers showing a 14.2 percent drop in NOW's readership over the past two years, according to the Globe and Mail. The Canadian daily uses the readership drop as a springboard to examine the state of Toronto's alt-weeklies -- NOW and its competitor Eye Weekly, which is in the same ownership group as the daily Toronto Star. "Alt-weeklies are a particular case. Entirely reliant on advertising revenues, their revenue is not augmented by subscriptions or newsstand sales," the Globe and Mail reports. "At the same time, they're threatened by a panoply of other free offerings." NOW publisher Michael Hollett shrugs off the latest numbers, and says the paper's health is strong. "It's just one of many ways of counting," he says. "Our boxes are empty and business is good." Indeed, the Globe and Mail reports that NOW's ad revenue was up in 2007, and Hollett notes that the paper continues to innovate -- and gain readers -- online.
The Globe and Mail |
05-20-2008 11:47 am |
Industry News
AAN.org Introduces Comments
AAN this week is launching a comments feature on stories posted to this site. AAN members must be logged in to read and/or make comments.
AAN |
05-19-2008 4:22 pm |
Association News
| Comments (1)
Make the Most Out of Your Mornings in Philly
In case the seminars, parties and after-parties aren't enough to fill your days at the Convention, our sponsor GPTMC has created special guided morning experiences (from 7:30-9 am) just for convention attendees. On Friday, June 6, you have a choice of a trip that includes a visit to Philadelphia's Magic Garden (and a soft pretzel fresh out of the oven), or Punk Rock Boot Camp, a fun and effective fitness alternative. Saturday morning offers a running or walking loop on the Schuylkill River Trail, as well as a private tour of the Liberty Bell and Independence Hall -- including a trip to the rarely visited second floor of Congress Hall. All tours are limited to 25 participants. To register, please email Debra Silvestrin at debra (at) aan.org. Please visit the Special Events page on the Convention website for full descriptions. And if you're looking to explore on Sunday morning after the Convention is over, GPTMC has created a handy guide of potential self-guided tours, including "Brewadelphia," "Philly: A Green Kind of Town," and seven others that you can check out in this PDF.
AAN |
05-19-2008 2:07 pm |
Association News
Online Ad Growth Slows with Economic Downturnnew
"While search advertising remains strong, there are signs that the growth in online advertising -- particularly in more elaborate display ads -- is slowing down," the New York Times reports. The prices for online display ads are falling as well: The prices paid for ads bought through networks dropped 23 percent from March to April, according to one index. Search ads remain popular since "they are considered cheap and effective among marketers -- even in a potential recession," according to the Times. One analyst thinks recession fears might actually help some media companies, as marketers move their budgets online. "People switch their advertising budgets out of traditional advertising formats -- TV, radio and print -- and move more online because it's got higher performance, it's cheaper and it's more measurable," Sanford C. Bernstein senior analyst Jeffrey Lindsay says.
The New York Times |
05-19-2008 8:33 am |
Industry News
Isthmus' TheDailyPage.com Scoops Local Media and Shows Up on Fox News
Isthmus Press Release |
05-19-2008 12:34 pm |
Press Releases
Santa Barbara Independent Wins EPpy Awardnew
Independent.com has won the EPpy for the best weekly newspaper-affiliated website in the country, Editor & Publisher, which sponsors the contest with Mediaweek, reports. The winners of the annual awards honoring online work were announced yesterday in Las Vegas, and publisher Randy Campbell was there to accept, thanking his staff "for their hard work in taking the website from a skeleton to a fully operational daily source of news for the Santa Barbara community," the Independent reports. "There are no secrets to publishing, either online or in print, so I'm thrilled the hard work and commitment of our web team has been recognized on a national level," said Campbell back in April when the site was first nominated.
Editor & Publisher | Santa Barbara Independent |
05-16-2008 9:21 am |
Honors & Achievements
2008 Academy for Alternative Journalism Fellows Named
Ten fellows have been chosen from a field of about 330 hopefuls to attend the Academy for Alternative Journalism summer residency program at Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism, to be held June 22 to August 15. The academy trains young journalists in long-form feature writing with the aim of recruiting them into the alternative press. "This class has a lot of career-changers, including a flight attendant, a former truck driver and an elementary school teacher," says program director and Northwestern journalism professor Charles Whitaker. "It's one of the most diverse classes we've had in several years."
(FULL STORY)
AAN |
05-15-2008 1:15 pm |
Association News
AAN's Louisiana Contingent Piles Up the State Press Awardsnew
Both Gambit Weekly and The Independent Weekly went home last month with awards from The Louisiana Press Association. The Independent won a total of 38 awards in the editorial and ad/design competitions. These included first-place finishes on the editorial side in Community Service/Service to Readers
Website; Continuing Coverage of a Governmental Issue; Continuing Coverage of a Single News Event; Editorial Cartoon; Feature Story; Lifestyle Coverage; and News Coverage. On the ad/design side, the Independent won first in Ad Campaign; Black and White 1/2 Page or Under (Staff-generated); Black and White Over 1/2 Page (Staff-generated); In-Paper Promotion (Color); and Multiple Advertiser Page. Gambit Weekly took home a total of seven awards in the editorial competition, including a first-place finish in Regular Column.
Louisiana Press Association (PDF file) |
05-15-2008 8:59 am |
Honors & Achievements
